Increasing Consumption and the Environment

Article shared by

Increasing Consumption and the Environment!

The world today seems to be heading towards a consumption revolution. Since the 1950s, the rate at which we consume energy, vegetables, meat, copper, steel and timber has more than doubled, car ownership has quadrupleted, while plastic use has quintuipleted and air travel has multiplied by a staggering about forty times.

In general, today, people are much more consumption-oriented and wealthier than 50 or even 20 years ago. They buy and consume more. This is why scholars have called modem society as ‘consumer society’. The demand for the sources of energy and raw materials is increasing day by day from the modem industries for making the life more and more comfortable and happy. But the world’s supply of energy sources and raw materials is limited.

It is estimated that at the current rate of consumption, the known oil sources of the world will be completely consumed by die year 2050. These resources will mn out if global consumption is not checked and controlled. Consumption is putting extra pressure on agricultural land and fisheries also.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The unintended consequences of this consumption revolution are very serious. To take a very small example, the British consume about 7 crore chickens per annum. These chickens are only produced and consumed to an acceptable level of safety by the use of some antibiotics in their feed.

But suppose chickens widely develop immunity to antibiotics and develop some disease like ‘bird flu’ (2007) or ‘mad cow disease’ (1996), what would be the result? Such consumption is not without risk. This is why the sociologist of risk, Ulrich Beck calls this condition as the ‘acceptable’ risks of late modernity. The growth in world tourism has also enhanced the surge in consumption. Rapid use of non-renewable or limited resources puts the whole ecosystem at risk.